Being a teenager isn't all that different from being part of someone else's story. There's always someone who thinks they know better than you do

She had never been a pretty crier. She sobbed the way she did everything else - with passion and excess.

It is strange to think that we might have crossed paths, and still not have known what we were missing.

Do you know how there are moments when the world moves so slowly you can feel your bones shifting, your mind tumbling? When you think that no matter what happens to you for the rest of your life, you will remember every last detail of that one minute forever?

A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right, like when you pop a piece of fancy chocolate into your mouth expecting toffee filling and you get lemon zest instead.

Like a missing tooth, sometimes an absence is more noticeable than a presence.

Most people in America want an easy read. I call it McFiction - books which pass right through you without you even digesting them. I don't mean a book that has two-syllable words. I mean chapters you can read in a toilet break. Happy endings. We are more of a TV culture.